After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand as a post of its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

I had an hour to kill last Saturday while my girls were at a friend’s house.  I took my camera and went searching for something to shoot.  Being in the middle of a bright and sunny day, the landscape options were all a bust.  I remembered that a good rule in those situations is to look for a subject or an abstract rather than something like a landscape that benefits more from good lighting conditions.

I went by some horse pastures to see if anything was going on, but the horses were all taking cover from the sun.  I drove down into Chatfield State Park, still not knowing what to do, when I remembered the model airplane field.  It’s a really nice facility with a large asphalt runway, a pavilion, picnic tables, taxi lanes, and dedicated work areas.

Just by chance there was some sort of event going on and the place was filled with people and the air was a constant buzzing of plane motors.  I was surprised how large some of the planes were.  I don’t know the scale, but they seemed pretty big!  It was super challenging to deal with focus, zoom, and shutter speed all at once while the planes darted overhead.

Cleared for Landing
1/1000, f/9, 280mm @ ISO 200

More shots here.